administration. joining me here in the studio is mark landher white house correspondent for "the new york times." margaret carlson for the bloomberg view and national correspondent chris. thank you very much for being with us. we could use officer deprimo to solve some of the budget problems, christmas spirit and the powerball couple from missouri, amazing couple who one was laid off, the other just finally got a job and now they've got more than $200 million. >> yeah. >> before taxes. >> the cheerful part of the news. >> emphasize that. >> let's move to the other part. >> margaret, for the uncheerful part of the news. >> thank you. >> loot is shadow boxing, but there is an undercurrent of both sides playing chicken and the markets are sitting there and at any moment could decide hey, this deal is not going to get done and give us a lump of coal. >> when you get the drop in the dow jones average it will focus attention the way the fiscal cliff is not focusing attention. the report that mitch mcconnel